The Nation Newspaper

Tag: transfer

  • Enyimba warn over alleged illegal transfer attempt of Henry Uche

    Enyimba warn over alleged illegal transfer attempt of Henry Uche

    Former Premier League champions, Enyimba of Aba have warned that any club or group that does transfer dealings directly with their midfielder, Henry Uche does so at his peril because he is still under contract with them.

    In a press statement signed by the Chairman of the club, Felix Anyansi Agwu, the Peoples’ Elephants said it was wrong for the advisors of the out of favour Super Eagles’ player to contemplate selling him to another club without due recourse to Enyimba.

    Enyimba have threatened to drag such person, body or organisation to FIFA and other relevant agencies to get justice if Uche’s return to Nigeria is not facilitated and formal transfer negotiation re-open with the club.

    According to the press release: “Our attention has been drawn to the illegal transfer attempt of our player, Henry Uche who is under contract with us, to Bucaspor of Turkey.

    “We are shocked that well-established FIFA international transfer guidelines have been ignored and the player has sneaked out of the country to go and sign for a foreign club without direct consultation and negotiation with us. Such a blatant disregard to the rules of player transfer is one we find unlawful and totally unacceptable. It amazes us that no formal approach was made to us and yet the player has been allowed to travel abroad in an attempt to sign contracts with a new club.

    “We strongly condemn this action of Henry Uche and his agents and warn that any club interested in his services must deal with us directly. Henry Uche has abandoned his duties with Enyimba International FC since his invitation to the Super Eagles camp last December and made several efforts to renege on his contractual obligations.

    “He is therefore acting illegally and no club should engage any further in this unlawful transfer attempt by the player. He is wanted in the team and must follow international club transfer protocols and obtain our express permission before embarking on a trip abroad.

    “Again, we warn that any persons involved in the unauthorised sale of Henry Uche must stop forthwith, any further transaction with the said player and facilitate his return to Nigeria with immediate effect.

    “We shall deem any further failure to deal with us directly in the transfer of the player as a clear violation of FIFA Regulations on player transfer and petition any persons or organisations involved to the world football governing body for swift disciplinary actions.

    “Henry Uche is our bonafide player and therefore any formal transfer agreements have to be reached between Enyimba International FC and any club interested in him, not between his agents and a buying club.”

  • SUNDAY MBA TRANSFER SAGA LATEST WARRI WOLVES INSIST ON N203M

    SUNDAY MBA TRANSFER SAGA LATEST WARRI WOLVES INSIST ON N203M

    •Ready for court action; Want Rangers to step aside

    •Yet to get NFF official decision

    •Top clubs from Germany, Ukraine, USA keep vigil on Eagles star

    •Oil-City side appoint FIFA licensed agent to handle interest on AFCON ace

     

    DESPITE claims that Enugu Rangers are studying an alleged 12 million Naira transfer fee (about $75,000) requested by Warri Wolves for AFCON star Sunday Mba, the management of Oil-City based outfit has placed one million Euros (about N203m) on the most sought after local league player.

    In a lengthy chat with SportingLife at the Warri City stadium on Saturday, the media officer of the team, Moses Etu stated that local football clubs should step aside because three top flight clubs from Germany, Ukraine and USA were on their toes to pick the Super Eagles star as soon as the controversy surrounding the player is cleared.

    Etu added that in spite of Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) directive to resolve the issue, they were in fact ready to go to court with Rangers at any length.

    Etu said: “We have told the world that by the time the foreign clubs come, we would negotiate with them and we would let Mba go. “Mba cannot hold us to ransom, and we will not hold him to ransom either. What people are asking us is how much do we want to place on Mba, it depends on negotiation but actually we have place one million Euros on him, at the end of the day we would negotiate and all of us will be happy.

    “Like I told you, we have not less than fifteen clubs, the last one called from USA last week. And we have FIFA licensed agent Emmanuel Ibru handling the interest of clubs concerning Mba.

    “It goes beyond making enquiries, for now we are keeping the names of the club to our chest.”

    Speaking further, Etu said: “What they (NFF) are saying is that we should tell Rangers how much we want to sell the player. But the truth is we are not willing to sell the player to Rangers.

    “We have no less than fifteen foreign clubs, eagerly waiting to sign Mba who is our player. We have all the documents. Let me confess to you, the NFF has not officially communicated their decision to Warri Wolves, so we are waiting for the letter.”

    Etu added that N3.5 million was deposited into a private account of Paul Chidozie, the General Manager of Rangers in respect of the transfer of Sunday Mba.

    “We got a provisional clearance from Rangers on Sunday Mba when he joined us and we paid the sum of N3.5m to Rangers through the private account of the GM of the club, Paul Chibuzor, who instructed us to make such payment,” he said.

    It could be recalled that Sunday Mba scored Nigeria’s winning goal at the African Nations Cup final held in South Africa last February.

     

  • Etihad Airways completes passenger services transfer

    Etihad Airways completes passenger services transfer

    Etihad Airways’ ‘Big Switch’ to its new Sabre Airline Solutions ‘SabreSonic’ Customer Sales and Service (CSS) system has been completed with minimal operational disruption across the airline’s global flight network during the cutover period.

    Etihad Airways’ President/Chief Executive Officer, James Hogan, said: “The cut over to the new SabreSonic Customer Sales and Service system has been an outstanding operation involving thousands of Etihad Airways’ staff and months of hard work.

    “To have achieved a cutover of this magnitude with such minimal disruption to our operations and customers is testament to the excellent teamwork between Etihad Airways and Sabre Airline Solutions.

    “We now have a passenger services system that is world class, and the ten year deal with Sabre means that we can continue to enhance and improve it year on year, which will ensure we’re always ahead of the game.”

    Chairman/Chief Executive Officer of Sabre Holdings, said, Sam Gilliland: “Over the past few days, teams from Etihad Airways and Sabre have worked diligently on the successful migration onto our SabreSonic Customer Sales and Service system. The success of the migration is directly related to the outstanding project management by Etihad Airways and Sabre.

    “We are confident that SabreSonic will deliver outstanding value to Etihad Airways through increased revenues, the ability to personalise the travel experience to their customers and improved operational efficiency. We welcome Etihad Airways to our community.”

    The mammoth cutover operation involved hundreds of members of Etihad Airways’ staff who initially implemented, tested and configured the new software. They then worked on transferring all existing 530,000 bookings into the new system and restructuring the airline’s website.

     

     

    The SabreSonic CSS cutover team reworked the business processes, rewired all of the links into the airline’s operation and back office systems, and transferred all of the network connections, before doing a final check to ensure the system was ready to go live.

    SabreSonic CSS is state-of-the art in every way and transforms Etihad Airways’ reservations, inventory, eCommerce, distribution, and departure control activities, as well as providing customers with significantly enhanced mobile and communications access.

    The transformation, involving the training of more than 6,700 Etihad Airways and third party staff, is the most challenging IT and business-critical initiative Etihad Airways has ever undertaken and is at the centre of a US$ 1 billion technology agreement with Sabre Airline Solutions.

    The new SabreSonic CSS enables customers to take greater control of their journey and have more choice about how they interact with the airline. Customers can also complete transactions, such as purchasing upgrades at check-in, more easily than ever before.

    In addition to Etihad Airways’ Abu Dhabi hub, 23 other airports around the world cutover to the SabreSonic CSS platform during the weekend with the implementation in the remaining destinations set to continue until the end of March.

    Etihad Airways’ cutover took place a month after its equity partner Virgin Australia made its own Big Switch to SabreSonic CSS. airberlin, another member of the Etihad Airways equity alliance, also uses a wide selection of Sabre products.

    Mr Hogan added: “The bonds between Etihad Airways’ alliance airlines continue to strengthen and it is extremely beneficial that Virgin Australia and Etihad Airways both now have the Sabre CSS system and others also use Sabre products. It is a further example of the synergies that tie Etihad Airways and our equity partners together.”

  • NPFL to introduce players’ transfer certificate

    NPFL to introduce players’ transfer certificate

    Mike Idoko, a member of the 12-man Interim Committee of the Nigerian Professional Football League (NPFL), said on Wednesday that the body would henceforth issue certificates for the transfer of players.

    Idoko disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Akure, on the controversy over which club owns Super Eagles player, Sunday Mba.

    Rangers International FC of Enugu, Warri Wolves and Dolphins FC of Port Harcourt are engaged in an ownership tussle of the Africa Cup of Nations revelation, Sunday Mba and goalkeeper, Chigozie Agbim.

    He said the certificate would prevent the future occurrence of clubs’ tussling over ownership of players, adding that it would serve as evidence of ownership of any player. Idoko said the certificate would also make for easy transfer of players during any transfer window.

    “We want to issue a local transfer certificate without which players cannot be transferred from one club to the other,” he said.

    Idoko said that it was the NPFL board that kept records of players’ movements in the transfer market. He added that it was part of the board’s reference to also look after player’s welfare and to act in due time to protect their careers.

    NAN reports that the Interim Management Committee of the Nigeria Premier League on Monday ruled that Professional League side, Warri Wolves, owned both players.

  • ‘Why transfer window has not started’

    ‘Why transfer window has not started’

    The transfer window that wouldenable holders of two pension accounts to transfer funds has not started because of identification management problem, the Managing Director, Leadway Pensure PFA Limited, Mrs Ronke Adedeji, has said.

    She told The Nation that though a lot of work has been done on it, the scheme is yet to take off because there are still quite a lot that need to be done to make sure it is error free.

    She said: “The transfer window is a very complex exercise, though from the surface it looks a very simple thing. It is complex because when you move an account from one Pension Fund Administrator (PFA) to another, identification process becomes a problem. What we want to ensure is that when you are transferring someone’s account from one PFA to another, you are transferring the correct account and not another person’s account simply because they have similar names.

    “Biometric is very key here, proper identification process is very important. In the country we have identification problem, this is essentially what is hindering the take-off of the scheme,” she said.

    The Leadway boss said in most developed countries, proper identification is simple. She , however, lamented that it is still a problem and that it is affecting the take-off of the transfer owindow.

    She said until the biometric is right, the issue may still drag on, adding that the pension commission and the operators are doing a lot to see how soon it could start.

    Adedeji said the pension fund operators were looking at options that would guarantee that at the end of the day, a flawless system was in place.

    The other problems militating against the smooth take-off of the scheme was lack of proper software and data bank, adding that a lot of work still needed to be done.

    She said the pension fund operators, the government and other relevant stakeholders might end up collaborating on the biometric to ensure that a workable system was put in place.

    The Managing Director, Legacy Pension Managers Limited, Mr Misbahu Umar Yola, said it is a misnomer to talk about one person having two retirement savings accounts. This, he said, was possible in Nigeria because of unreliable data base.

    He said: “It is an aberration that we should be talking about one person having two PFAs. If the system had worked well right from the outset, the moment your finger print is imputed in the process of creating a second PFA, the system would have alerted that you have an existing one, and the second one would have been rejected but that had not been the case because the system failed to work well.’’

    On pensioners who want to collect another 25 per cent from the retirements savings after the first 25 per cent lump sum had been paid, he said it is not possible because the position of the pension law is very clear about that.

    She said the 25 per cent is paid once to the account holder after retirement while the balance is managed on terms agreed to by the parties.

  • ‘Why transfer window is delayed’

    The hope of retirees to transfer their retirement savings account from one Pension Fund Administrator (PFA) to another may still take sometime, The Nation has learnt.

    The delay is as a result of the inability of the National Pension Commission (PenCom) to conclude work on Information and Technology (IT) applications.

    A source said PenCom is battling to settle some problems surrounding the initiative.

    Head, Research and Corporate Strategy PenCom, Dr Farouk Aminu, confirmed this, saying the Commission is working on the transfer window problems.

    He told The Nation that the framework has been issued to operators for implementation, adding , however, that work was still ongoing on the supporting IT application that would drive the initiative.

    To ensure seamless operation of the initiative, PenCom mandated PFAs and Pension Fund Custodians (PFCs) to deploy IT infrastructure for the job, saying such this must have adequate storage and retrieval capability for about 10 years.

    He explained that Section 11 (2) of the Pension Reform Act (PRA) 2004 specifies that an employee may not, more than once in a year, transfer the RSA from one PFA to another without any reason.

    He added that a review of the regulation would address multiple transfers of RSAs in a year.

    PenCom said the inability of any PFA to provide service to RSA holders will attract a fine of N100,000 and N10,000 for every month of violation.

    Similarly, a monthly sanction of N100,000 per RSA shall be imposed on any PFA who violates the law.

  • OFOEDU’S TRANSFER LATES AGENT RIPES OFF RANGERS N27M

    OFOEDU’S TRANSFER LATES AGENT RIPES OFF RANGERS N27M

    THE STORM brewing from Chikeluba Oforedu’s transfer to Turkish club 1461 Trabzon is growing by the day, as sources reveal that Enugu Rangers are infuriated that they were riped off N27m from the full value of the loan deal.

    allnigeriasoccer.com sources revealed that reports in the Turkish media disclosed that the value of the loan fees was 160, 000 euros (about N33m).

    However, the agents that facilitated the deal had told Rangers International that the deal was worth $50, 000, (about N8m) out of which they had already paid $40, 000 (about N6m) to the Enugu State owned team’s coffers.

    When news of the true value of the loan reached Oak Zeel FC President, Okechukwu Omeje and the club’s legal representatives Activity Chambers, they quickly contacted Rangers to find out if they were aware of the true value of the loan and our sources say that once it dawned on Rangers International that they had been taken for a ride and defrauded by the agents they swore to get to the root of the case.

    According to the source, all efforts by the Rangers boss to reach the agent Lanre proved abortive as the agent refused to pick the chairman’s call.

  • PHCN stakeholders kick over transfer of N1 billion

    PHCN stakeholders kick over transfer of N1 billion

    Stakeholders in the Power Holding Company of Nigeria Plc (PHCN), are questioning the depletion of the company’s account to the tune of N1billion in the first quarter of this year alone through what they see as curious requests from the supervising ministry- Power.

    They are worried by the frequency of the requests and the true intentions.

    Documents on to the transfer of funds obtained by The Nation revealed that on December 20, 2011, a PHCN executive director and a senior manager, in a memo to the Manager, Access Bank Plc Aminu Kano Street Wuse II, Abuja asked that “the Current Account of our station specified below be funded from our outstanding Debt Account No 0430010004816 with you”.

    They specifically asked that N180 million be transferred to the Federal Ministry of Power (Project) Account in Zenith Bank Plc, Maitama branch and another N50 million transferred to the Industrial Training Fund at Keystone Bank Ltd, Wuse II, Abuja.

    This was preceded by a December 9,2011 transfer of N395, 281, 000 from the company’s outstanding Debt Account

    0430010004816 on 9th December 2011.

    In a letter marked ED-MO-TCN/002-003-1706-2011, the same PHCN executive director and an assistant general manager asked Access Bank Plc, Aminu Kano Street, Wuse II, Abuja to transfer the sum to the Federal Ministry of Power (Project) at Zenith Bank Plc, Maitama branch, Abuja.

    A note attached to the letter suggested that the request was approved by the top management of the ministry.

    The request came via a letter FMP/PPRU/163/VOL.11/6 of December 8, 2011 and was tagged ‘media budget’.

    On January 17, 2012, the executive director wrote to the Head, Public Sector Group, First Bank of Nigeria Plc, Central Business District, Abuja to transfer N200million from the company’s market clearing Account No 2005859094 into the Presidential Task Force on Power ostensibly for the sensitization of the Public on Power Sector Reform .

    Another PHCN executive director and a senior management officer in a June 7, 2012 letter to Diamond Bank, Aminu Kano Street, Wuse II, Abuja requested that N84 million be transferred from PHCN outstanding Debt Account to Federal Ministry of Power (Project).

    The transfer was in response to a June 5, 2012 memo requesting ‘logistic support’ for increased patrol of transmission lines and projects nationwide.

    The memo said in part: “the prevalent vandalism of transmission lines and the increased collapse of towers had often led to the instability in the power supply causing, as it were, frequent system collapses. There is need to nip this trend in the bud and speedily attend to such issues when they arise especially with the coming on board of the National Integrated Power Projects. In order to harvest the gains of these completed projects and to ensure the strengthening of the transmission system, it becomes necessary to patrol these lines more frequently.

    “…In the light of the above, it is recommended that the lines should be constantly patrolled jointly by the officials of the ministry, Transmission Company of Nigeria and security and agencies. In order to provide the necessary logistics support for the period exercises, the following vehicles should be procured: 4 no. SUVs at N21 million each, totalling N84 million.”

    Another N98,985,000 was made available to the ministry on the strength of a presidency approval for the procurement of two treated security vehicles for the minister.

    A director in the ministry asked PHCN to “take necessary action to ensure the prompt release of the sum (N93, 985,000.00) into the ministry’s project Account.

    A source in the ministry informed The Nation that the leadership of the ministry had unfettered access to PHCN’s accounts after the company’s achievement of its target of 4,000 megawatts and the determination of the Jonathan’s administration to privatize it.

     

  • Akeredolu urges IGP to transfer Ondo police chief

    Akeredolu urges IGP to transfer Ondo police chief

    •US envoys visit candidates

    The Ondo State Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) governorship candidate, Mr Oluwarotimi Akeredolu (SAN) yesterday urged the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) to transfer the police commissioner.

    The ACN candidate accused the police chief and his team of partisanship.

    Akeredolu spoke in Akure, the state capital, when two American envoys, Jeffrey Hawkins and Rolf Olson, visited him.

    He alleged that the police chief and his men were working for the ruling Labour Party (LP).

    The former Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) President doubted the credibility of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) under Prof. Attahiru Jega.

    Akeredolu noted that without a trusting and fair security partnership with INEC, it would be difficult to know the truth about the election.

    The ACN candidate hailed the American envoys for representing the agents that would ensure a free and fair poll.

    He said the dividends of democracy are not in building roads or providing basic amenities – as these are also achievable under a military government – but by allowing freedom of speech and the liberty to vote for one’s choice of leadership.

    Jeffrey Hawkins and Rolf Olson were in Ondo State to assess the political situation in the Sunshine State and familiarise with the governorship candidates.

    They visited governorship candidates and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and emphasised the need for a free and fair election on October 20.

    The envoys also listed the benefits of a violence-free poll to the growth of democracy.

    Addressing reporters in Akure, the state capital, when they visited the ACN candidate, Hawkins, who is the Consul-General, said the US was interested in ensuring that the poll result represents the people’s wish.

    Hawkins said American observers would monitor the poll.

    Olson spoke of the need for the poll to adhere with democratic guidelines.